Recruiting and hiring qualified candidates is a vitally important task for employers. Many employers are constantly seeking to hire qualified candidates to fill available positions with the employers' companies. Such available positions may be a result of an increase in productivity of the employer requiring growth in the number of employees, loss of employees (e.g., employees retiring or otherwise having their employment with the employer's company terminated), creation of a new position within the employer's company, or a variety of other reasons. It should be understood, of course, that when referring herein to an employer or an employer's company, such reference is intended to encompass not only incorporated businesses, but is also intended to encompass any other type of business desiring to hire qualified employees.
Generally, two steps are required in obtaining qualified employees: candidate generation and candidate (or “applicant”) processing. The candidate generation step is responsible for attracting and/or identifying candidates for an employer. Candidate generation may be accomplished in a variety of ways, such as through direct solicitation of candidates (e.g., contacting persons directly in an attempt to lure such persons into becoming candidates), indirect solicitation of candidates (e.g., advertising a job opening), and the employer's presence at job fairs, as examples. Candidates may approach an employer seeking a position with the employer, without the employer having actively attempted to “generate” such candidate. That is, candidates may be “generated” without requiring an employer to actively pursue such candidates through the above-mentioned methods. Furthermore, candidates for a position with an employer may already be employed in another position with the employer. For example, an employee in one position with the employer may be a candidate for another position in order to seek an increase in salary, increase in responsibility, decrease in the number of required work hours, etcetera. Thus, as used herein the term “candidates” is not intended to be limited only to persons that are not employed by an employer, but is intended to broadly encompass any person that is interested in applying for a particular position with the employer.
Once a candidate is generated for an employer, the candidate processing step begins. Candidate processing includes screening, evaluating, and qualifying generated candidates for available employment positions. Such candidate processing may include multiple levels (or steps) of processing in order to determine whether generated candidates qualify for available employment positions. As an example of candidate processing, suppose an employer has a particular position available, and the employer requires an employee that is, at a minimum, a high school graduate to fill the position. Thus, generated candidates must be screened in order to determine whether each candidate satisfies the minimum criteria (e.g., being a high school graduate) in order to qualify for the available position. Of course, such screening may be utilized to determine whether generated candidates satisfy any number of criteria required by an employer, such as candidate's education level, candidate's experience level, candidate's license (e.g., license to practice law in a particular state), candidate's language skills (e.g., whether the client is bi-lingual), and candidate's computer skills, as examples.
Typically, such candidate screening is utilized to identify qualified candidates, whom may then be considered for employment. For example, once a candidate is identified as being qualified, the candidate may be offered a position of employment with the employer. On the other hand, once a candidate is identified as being qualified, the candidate is more typically passed through additional level(s) of screening (e.g., personal interviews with the employer) before the employer determines whether to offer employment to the qualified candidate.
In the prior art, human resources are generally required for performing the candidate processing step described above. That is, human resources, such as employees of the employer are typically utilized to interview generated candidates to determine whether such candidates qualify for a position with the employer, i.e., determine whether such candidates satisfy the minimum criteria required by the employer. Generated candidates may be asked to complete questionnaires, and human resources may then be used to review the responses to the questionnaires to determine whether each candidate qualifies for a position with the employer. Once it is determined that a candidate does qualify for a position, the human resources performing the candidate processing task may then notify the candidate, schedule an interview between the candidate and a hiring manager, and forward information about the candidate (e.g., resume, writing sample, etc.) to the hiring manager.
Because all of the generated candidates will likely not qualify, the candidate processing task may reduce a very large number of generated candidates down to a much more manageable number of “qualified” candidates for consideration by the hiring manager. It should be understood that successful candidate generation ideally generates a very large pool of candidates for the employer, which is generally desirable to enable the employer a broad range of candidates from which to select for employment. It should also be understood that serious consideration of every generated candidate (e.g., a personal interview between the hiring manager and every generated candidate) would be very inefficient (and likely impossible for a very large number of generated candidates), in that many candidates generated may not satisfy the minimum criteria required for a position with the employer (i.e., may not “qualify” for a position with the employer). Thus, the candidate processing task allows increased efficiency in the overall hiring process in that “qualified” candidates from a generated pool of candidates are first determined, and only those qualified candidates are then seriously considered for a position with the employer.
Using the existing technique for candidate processing, there are a number of issues and problems that arise. First, depending on the infrastructure of the employer, a number of human resources are required for performing the candidate processing in order to determine the qualified candidates from a generated pool of candidates. Depending on the volume of generated candidates, the number of positions the employer desires to fill, and the variety in the qualification criteria for each position, inter alia, a relatively large number of human resources may be required. Requiring such a large number of human resources for performing this candidate processing task is generally undesirable in that it is inefficient because the human resources may be better utilized performing other tasks. Additionally, requiring such a large number of human resources for candidate processing is not cost effective because an employer is required to pay the large number of human resources for performing candidate processing. Thus, it may be very costly for employers to recruit and process candidates in order to fill available positions, and much of the employer's financial incentive for hiring a new employee for a position may be lost in the cost of processing candidates for the position.
Additionally, the quality and/or consistency of candidate processing of the prior art is problematic. That is, the human resources may be very inconsistent in performing the candidate processing task, which may lead to an ad hoc process of qualifying candidates. For example, utilizing human resources for candidate processing allows for discrimination in that the human resources may determine particular candidates unqualified based on criteria other than the qualification criteria established by the employer. Additionally, prior art candidate processing techniques are problematic in that they typically do not notify non-qualifying candidates of the reasons that they do not qualify for a position. Thus, candidates are left to speculate as to reasons for their not qualifying, and the employer may be left with no or little explanation as to why a particular candidate did not qualify, which may make it difficult for an employer to respond to claims of employment discrimination. Furthermore, if reasons for not qualifying are provided to a candidate, the reasons may be inaccurate, as human resources introduce the possibility of error into the processing task.
Furthermore, the time required for processing candidates is problematic. Utilizing the prior art technique, an undesirably long time is required for processing candidates, which delays the time required for hiring a candidate for a position. For example, human resources may be required to interview and/or review resumes and/or screen questionnaires of many generated candidates. The time required for the human resources to screen each candidate and determine the qualifying candidates may be undesirably long. Often, an employer may desire to fill an available position as soon as possible, and the lengthy time typically required for candidate processing conflicts with this desire.
Additionally, once qualifying candidates are identified, the human resources are often required to take subsequent actions, such as contacting a candidate to notify the candidate whether he/she qualifies for a position with the employer, scheduling an interview between the qualifying candidates and a hiring manager, and forwarding information about the qualifying candidates (e.g., resumes, questionnaires, writing samples, letters of recommendation, etcetera) to the hiring manager to assist the hiring manager in his/her consideration of each candidate. Thus, such subsequent actions may require further human resources, thereby adding to the cost and inefficiency discussed above, and additional time required for the processing of candidates.